President Vicente Fox is on a mission to persuade the world to rethink its image of Mexico as a country living under the shadow of its superpower neighbour, and what better way to start than being buddies with its President.
So it was with obvious relish that Mr Fox welcomed President George Bush to his ranch in the central state of Guanajuato yesterday. The seven-hour visit began with a courtesy call on the Mexican President's ailing mother behind the 17th-century walls that are all that are left of the original hacienda bought by the Fox family at the start of the century.
"You look well," Mr Bush told Mrs Quezada Fox. Mrs Fox, who speaks with difficulty since suffering a stroke a few years ago, wished Mr Bush success in the talks with her son. "I thought your advice was going to be: `Always listen to your mother'," he said. He offered a shawl as well as a framed photograph of the US presidential couple. "I spent all last week picking it out," Mr Bush joked.
The Mexicans were looking for signs that Mr Bush will back a more liberal migration policy, and a less condescending attitude towards Mexico's famously unsuccessful efforts to combat organised crime.
The meeting was not expected to produce concrete commitments, but the Mexicans have been bombarded with promises that the mini-summit heralds a new era of closer co-operation.
So the stage chosen to offset these claims was designed to seem relaxed and friendly. Ignore the omnipresent security and media mob, and one could see the Fox family ranch and the quaint village attached to it. The population earnestly praised the generosity of the people in the big house.
The meeting was also aimed at promoting the idea that the two leaders have personal reasons for co-operating more closely. Much was made of their liking for rural relaxation and unpolished rustic styles, not to mention the anecdotes about how they clicked on their first meeting in 1996 when Mr Bush was governor of Texas and Mr Fox governor of Guanajuato.
The Fox camp insists that the defeat of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71-year regime in last year's elections has earned Mexico a "democratic bonus", which means that the country can stand unashamed before its northern neighbour.
To drive all these points home, the road from the airport to Rancho San Cristobal and the village itself were plastered with posters of Mexican and US flags intertwined under the words "Prospering together".
"Everybody here is saying that this meeting could lead to the United States opening up the border a bit, making it easy to get papers so we can go north without fear," said Mr Gerardo Martinez (22).
Guanajuato is one of Mexico's prime migrant states, and even in the relatively prosperous Rancho where the Fox family businesses provide many with work, growing and freezing Brussels sprouts and broccoli, almost everyone you meet has relatives in the US and the issue provides constant food for thought and sometimes deep resentment.
Yesterday the US President was given a plate with produce from the farm, though broccoli was omitted. "You've done your research," Mr Bush joked in an apparent reference to his father's well-publicised comment that he had banned the vegetable from the White House when he was president.
President Bush got a chance to practise his Spanish, as well as some "Spanglish," when he started the visit.
Before the two leaders sat down for talks Mr Bush was presented to some neighbours in the village of San Cristobal, and to the Mexican President's family.
"Good to see you, amigo," he told a man in the crowd who cheered the two presidents as they arrived, after a 30-minute drive from El Bajio airport.
Greeting a worker on the ranch, Mr Bush said: "Mucho gusto y adios", Spanish for "Nice to meet you and goodbye."